34 GODS MUST YIE,LD I N accordance with the very best medical advice available, Melanie had been painfully cupped for a cold and, for what was dIagnosed as malarIa, I had been put on a dIet of yogurt. We survived-my wife and I-both the ailments and the cures, and we were properly grateful to be allowed to continue life on our Greek island. But we were nonetheless grateful, too, for the advent of an English doctor on the island; from the start we did our utmost to make him welcome. It was at the post office that we first saw him. We introduced ourselves, and learned he was a doctor and that his name was Lewis; we took him home for drinks. There we learned that Lewis didn't drink. UndIsmayed, we took him to our favorIte kafJeneion to see our favorite dancer-to learn more about Lewis, and to plan entertain- ments on his behalf. Lewis was both doctor and ama- teur archeologist. He admired ancient Greece rather than modern; because he had been often to Athens he spoke fl uent modern Greek. This visit was his first so remote from the capital, and it was possible only because he was on tI'- "" 1 ( r\ \ ... ..# '" F ... i ---- .. þ> , 1 , -<: ! > , .>à.. .. 'ì- /; . _t ,J leave after being in the hospital with hepatitis. He was feeling feeble, and irked by the stricture against alcohol. The first entertainment we offered him was a failure. That first night at the kafJeneion (it was Lewis who named it the Palais de Danse) we watched soldiers dancing with soldiers, and sailors dancing with sailors, shim- mYIng their way together through an- other evening without dates. Lewis said the dances were about as Greek as his cup of coffee to urkik 0 . Ptolomeos, the postman's son, danced without a partner. He's a showoff but much admired. His friends skimmed plates onto the floor for him He would jump over a plate, and back; he would land close, land astrIde, and land square on it-crockery sprayed around the small room. Nikos was there, too, downing glass after glass of retsina and looking every moment less eligible for our descriptIon of him as the best dancer on the island. He was as yellow as an icon. ('You have jaundice, my child," said Lewis, the doctor-a liverish patIent, too. Nikos startled us all by admitting it. .. . , . , ;' L .. . 41 \.........' !" -- 1".., J- <æ f * " " 4 - .."",. "Vf7 ell, if they do everything so tJluch better in Oregon, WIlY don't you flee to Oregon?" MARCH 2, 5, , 9 7 4- "I know it, my children," he said. "You shouldn't be drinking wine," said Lewis in a tone of rectItude that echoed less of the ward than of the nursery. "Go see a doctor, my child." His Greek was more than fluent; it was authoritative. "I'm going." Nikos poured a fresh glass of retsina. "Tomorrow." And drank. Lewis, we thought, was longing to do the same. Instead, reprovingly, he sipped his coffee. Ptoloméos finished his exhibition and stood at our table to catch his breath and gulp some wine. "Nikos," he said without sympathy, "you look terrible" my child" "He's got jaundice," Melanie and I said, symphonically. By now, we knew the word for jaundice in Greek. Still unmoved, Ptolomeos filled Ni- kos's glass and his own. They drank a . 1 h I I " I ." d P rltua ea tn. can cure It, sal to- lomeos offhandedly. Lewis looked skeptical; Nikos looked indifferent. Ptoloméos gave his prescrip- tion. "You take a gold ring. Tonight, when you go to bed, you drop it into a glass of wine and you sa} some words over it-I'll teach them to you-and then in the morning you drink the wine and rub your finger with the ring. When you pass the wine, the disease will pass." Poor Lewis was taken aback. While he hesitated, de- ciding whether to prescribe for Nikos or proscribe against Ptolomeos, Melanie succeeded in diverting hIS professional at- tention to the curious practice of cupping. He was alternate- ly amused and outraged by her detailed description of the cups being pried loose from her hack wIth a pop, and our Greeks lost interest. Nikos de- parted, looking surly and sick, and Ptolomeos got swept off in a vortlca] dance in which he performed with his usual ath- leticism, so different from the elegant deportment of our fa- vorite. However, it was clear that Nikos wasn't going to be dancing that evening or for some time to come, so we apologized for the star's in- disposition and walked Lewis to his hotel, promising to pick him up early the next morn- Ing. ...... t I l' AS a doctor, Lewis might I1 have liked to visit our local leper colony, I don't know; as an amateur arche-